I hope you enjoy your Memorial Day. Tom Gosche was interviewed about his past work with the Chicago Blitz Professional Indoor Football. 

Former Chicago Blitz Business Manager Tom Gosche tells the tales of running a Pro Indoor Football Team. As an Executive he wore many hats, did many deals and has even more stories.

Tom Gosche was the president and general business manager of the Chicago Blitz indoor football team from roughly 2015 through the 2017 seasons.
According to Wikipedia the Blitz were members of American Indoor Football (AIF) in 2015 and 2016 and the Continental Indoor Football League (CIFL) in 2014. They played their home games at the Odeum Expo Center. The Blitz briefly joined the regional Midwest Professional Indoor Football (MPIF) for the 2018 season, but ceased operations once again after three games.
Tom visited the Pigpen recently to tell us the tales of being in the front offices of a start up Indoor football team and the challenges that the position and circumstances brought. His marketing savvy, hard work by he and co-workers helped keep the team and the fledgling league they played in afloat. Join us in the podcast episode above to hear Tom's and the Indoor Chicago Blitz's stories.

​Even if you are not currently thinking of selling your business, you should make every effort to prepare or ‘groom’ your business so it is sold successfully at the first opportunity. While the financial advisors you appoint will work with you to address issues specific to your company, there are a number of general grooming points worth considering (even before you appoint advisors) to maximize the value of your business:

Sales & Profitability: Historically, you may have been setting your prices, and thus your profit margins, at levels designed to create barriers to entry for your competition. If you are planning for a business sale your focus is likely to be short term strategies. It will be time to re-examine your market and customer base to see if higher sales and turnover levels are achievable. If the proposed sale itself is a number of years away, you should consider performing a strategic review of the entire business.

Operating Costs: You should regularly review your operating expenses but this is especially so when preparing your business for sale. You need to identify avenues to reduce expenses without affecting the operational effectiveness of your business.

Profit Trends: Apart from current margins, a purchaser will be looking at profit trends. Buyers are looking to see stable and steady yearly profit trends. Therefore, risky projects should be avoided and longer-term contracts that may prove to be onerous should be fully considered before acceptance. Unprofitable contracts need to be reevaluated and, if appropriate, terminated, as it is quite possible they will be detrimental to the value of your business.

Management Team: The purchaser of your business will be looking to acquire a high caliber management team. It may be worth reviewing your corporate structure to ensure that job titles and role descriptions adequately reflect the contribution that your management team makes to your business. Any re-structure needs finalization well in advance of an anticipated sale. A purchaser may also want assurance that the management team is supportive of your decision to sell or at least that it is likely to stay with the business for a reasonable period post-transaction. You should consider talking to management - how cooperative will they be? You never know, they may be interested in buying the business themselves.

Asset Base: Are there any assets in the business that may be of little or no interest to potential purchasers- e.g. short-term investments, under-utilized property, equipment or perhaps surplus cash? Think about realizing and removing them from the business before the sale. It is also worthwhile having all your property assets valued individually.

Restructuring: If your business has more than one division, some thought should be given to restructuring it into a number of stand-alone entities and perhaps selling these separately. Any such reorganization will have potential tax implications and other complexities associated with it and it will be important to take professional advice before undertaking any such initiative.

Tax Planning: Details of the various tax factors that you need to consider are set out in section 4 of this guide. Initial points to address include making sure that all your Corporation Tax, PAYE and VAT returns and payments are up to date. In addition, any tax losses that your company may have built up over the years may now have a value to the extent that they are available for use by the potential purchaser. Personal tax planning opportunities should be discussed with your tax adviser.

Valuation Expectations: You must have realistic valuation expectations. Valuation is important but do not let it get in the way of securing the sale.
​
Timing: Deciding the best time to sell your business can be a difficult decision to make. Factors to be considered when making this decision include the level of corporate activity in your industry; the state of the economy; changes in sector relevant legislation; and available tax reliefs (e.g. do you have to be a certain age to avail of certain retirement reliefs or pension planning opportunities).

These are all thinks that can help you, not only get your business sold for a great price, but help you grow your business beyond anything you ever dreamed of. I recommend you talk with an expert that has helped many business owners increase the value of their business:

SCOTT HANSEN
http://www.scotthansenconsulting.com

From: Top issues currently affecting small businesses
By Denice Gierach
Gierach Law Firm
Daily Herald Newspaper
5/1/2022

There are many concerns that small- to mid-sized business owners are worried about right now.

They are faced with several issues all at once, so that the priority of their issues may change, but many have not been removed from their list of concerns. This year, there have been several issues added.

Read the whole article from the Daily Herald here:
https://www.dailyherald.com/business/20220501/top-issues-currently-affecting-small-businesses?cid=search

Business owners have cited the following factors:

Inflation
Inflation impacts everything financial in a business, from what they pay for their supplies, their purchases that go into their manufactured products, and what they pay to hire their newest workers.

The business owners are paying more to hire people (some report as much as 30-40 percent higher wages). But the business owners have to be mindful of what they pay their current staffing, so that the new people who may be less experienced than those people who have been in the business for a long time and are proficient at their job will not have the wrong disparity in their pay.

Since there is such a shortage of people to hire, this creates an upward spiral in those wages and dramatically increased overall costs.

Pricing
Because of the large increases in wages, materials, gas and the like, these increases all adversely impact the margins in the business. Business owners do not want to lose money, so they need to determine how to pass these increased costs on to their customers.

Of course, if their competition is not yet passing these through to their customers, the business owner may lose some business if repricing their products for sale is not done in the correct fashion. Customers realize that the prices must rise, but they want to make sure that the business that they buy from does not take advantage of them.

Talent in the business
Businesses are still short of people. With all the people who retired in the "Great Resignation" in the last couple of years, businesses are still grappling with how to attract a younger worker. Some business owners are collaborating with high schools and junior colleges to tell younger people how working in manufacturing can be a great career choice and allows them to use the latest technology.

This is a five-year strategy, as it may take that long to see tangible results. In the meantime, many businesses are focused on how to attract workers that are either Gen-Z or millennials.

Recurring supply chain issues
In 2021 there were serious issues with supply chains. Ships were sitting in the harbors outside of Long Beach, California, unable to unload. There was a severe shortage of chips that are necessary to go into all sorts of products from cars to appliances to equipment.

This issue has eased for the moment, but depending on what happens with Taiwan, which manufactures most of the chips used by manufacturing companies, there may be more exacerbated issues going forward.

There are plants that are being built in the United States to start to manufacture these chips. Going forward, business owners will have to reshore their parts manufacturing to ensure a steady supply of the parts necessary to the manufacture of its products.

None of these are easy issues to solve, but creativity is important in finding ways around or through the problems. Each of these issues have been present for businesses in the past at one time or another as well. The businesses that survive and thrive have found creative ways to solve the problems.

Business owners should know where and when to ask for help and seek vendors and partners who can add to the conversation.

This reflects the view of Tom Gosche, your happy GLM blogger every week:

I was born and raised in Illinois. I also attended Northern Illinois University and had opportunity to get jobs in both Wisconsin and Indiana After Graduation. I will admit that I am a home body, who did not want to be away from my parents, but still enjoyed being in Illinois.

I will admit, one of my sons attends School in Iowa, but there are Scholarships in the mix that was not offer by an Illinois School.

Illinois has traditionally had its problems. Pension, not paying their bills timely and corrupt politics. Some of that is changing, but what people forget is everything else that Illinois has to offer.

I refer to an article I saw in the Daily Herald Business Section on Sunday May 1st,2022 about Intercept Illinois. I have been following the happenings of Intersect Illinois since its inception a few years ago during the Gov. Bruce Rauner administration.
 
Here is the Link to the Article:
https://www.dailyherald.com/business/20220501/changing-the-narrative-out-of-state-businesses-are-buying-illinois-sales-pitch?utm_source=morning%20alert&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article%20column&utm_campaign=Morning%20Alert%205%2F1%2F2022

Here is the Link to the Intersect Illinois Organization:
https://intersectillinois.org/